Sigrid Weidenweber's Blog, page 2

Islam's Virgins

As Hamas has been firing missiles into Israel weeks nor, or is just after our election, I think we must consider the reward fo killing offered them by their system. The reward for killing infidels is virgins. Those promised for a martyr's death in heaven and, of course, the live little ones on earth.

Having researched the subject of marriage from an anthropological point of view, I knew of course that in many countries the ugly custom of child marriage persists. A large part of the world still views women as whole populations of humans in slavery were regarded.  This was in times not far removed from today.

Slaves and serfs were people without rights; people without courts for redress of crimes directed against them, people forced to obey the often most atrocious, disgusting whims of their masters. Slowly things have changed in the world. We pride ourselves with the delusion that slavery has been abolished. However, slavery of women is alive and well in many countries. The selling of very young women and female children into sham marriages and sex shops is still a very lucrative business.

I know, of course, that in many Islamic countries, for example the Sudan, Somalia and others in the region, the old custom of selling, or contracting female children in the cradle as brides, is still going on. Despite the laws against such customs and the admonishing voices raised in the halls of the United Nations, rogue countries still persist with the custom.

What utterly blew me away though was a report on Palestinian Hamas guerillas. These men in their twenties to thirties were rewarded for their deeds with “virgins.” Oh my, I cringed when I saw the pictures of the rouged, made –up little girls in their white dresses. The “virgins” were between the ages of eight and thirteen. They trotted beside huge grown men holding their little hands. So, that were the virgins.

Then, very recently, I read in the Wall Street Journal a report by Angus McDowall and Summer Said discussing the fatwa of Grand Mufti Sheik Fawzan. The cleric hails from Saudi Arabia—our ally and business partner. He decreed that it was allowed for fathers to marry their cradle-bound baby-daughters to older boys and men. Now, one has to know that the Grand Mufti, Sheik Fawzan, is one of the most important clerics in Saudi Arabia, a Grand Mufty, for God sakes. He positioned himself against the reformers in the Justice Ministry who were ready to regulate the marriages of pre-pubescent girls and men.

The Grand Mufty in issuing his fatwa, based his ruling on “the laws of God,” thereby conveniently ignoring that the culture of sexual slavery is a cultural, not a divine institution. In his writ he states it is permissible to marry the babies, but it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them--and here comes the real kicker—until they are capable of “being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men.”

Oh, really? I know of perverts in our prisons who readily agree with the Grand Mufty on all counts. What is an acceptable age to force a child into sexual relations? When is her body strong enough to endure the sexual assault of an adult man? Oh, I know that the prophet married a six-year-old and was gracious enough to wait until she was nine-years-old before he had sex with her. Is he the great example to follow?

So why are the Islamic clerics in such a fury about laws that allow girls to have a childhood and grow to the age of reason, of perhaps seventeen and eighteen? It is quite easy to figure out. Such a one would be difficult to control. Such a one would not be quite the willing slave the men in these cultures have become used to. An Iranian friend of mine said jokingly, “Men lead the good life in Iran. The imam will allow you four wives, all young to be trained. They all jump when you clap your hands—what a great life. Our Iranian girls in the USA are witches. They don’t listen and try to make you suffer for all the sins of men back home.” (I think he got it, although he jokes.)

The horrors of the child-brides are well documented by doctors who work in Islamic and other countries with child-sex-slavery. The small brides often do not live through the first months of their marriage, quickly being replaced with another “virgin.” They suffer from urinary fistulas, which make them unacceptable to the families of the men. They bear children much too early, dying in childbirth, bleeding to death or are left with pro-lapsed uteri. The latter is another reason for the woman to be pushed from the family. Eventually women in physical trouble find themselves in the street, earning a living as prostitutes. If they do not find a Western medical station willing to help—they are doomed.

 

 

 

Requiem for Burhannuddin Rabbani

I wrote this blog a great while ago but with the situation heating up in most Islamic countries it is an actuality again. 

Today I read in the Wall Street Journal that Burhanuddin Rabbani, a negotiator for Hamid Karzai, was killed by a suicide bomber, a Taliban, who carried a bomb in his turban. He was allowed into Rabbani’s presence under the guise of peacemaker, a Taliban working on reconciliation. He greeted Rabbani in Allah’s name, shook his hand, set off the bomb and blew up himself, and the man who believed he was an instrument of conciliation for his war-torn country. But you cannot reconcile with the devil—for the devil only loves destruction.

Of course you would not know who Rabbani was. I, however, knew him. Not well, I met him only once, cursory. We talked through an interpreter, and most of the conversation was with my husband. That event took place in 1983. My husband I were in Pakistan, representing American Aid for Afghans, carrying humanitarian supplies. He represented the Northern Alliance, for which his son-in-law Massoud, “the lion of the Panshier,” was fighting the Russians.  Most of what I know about Rabbani I heard from others. They say he was decent man that he cared about Afghanistan. He fought against the Russians, was an ally of Mojaddedi’s, and early on, was president of Afghanistan. His presidency lasted only a few months and was destroyed by the Taliban.

The Taliban and Alkaida do not operate under any honor systems evolved in modern society. No, to the contrary, their belief and honor system is set in the old cultural norms and societal mores dating back to 700 BC. They believe that treachery and deceit is honorable if it furthers your cause.

Having killed Rabbani, the Taliban has accomplished one their greater goals, which are to make it impossible for any government other than a Taliban government based wholly on Sharia law to govern Afghanistan.  The idea that women can play any role in society is abhorrent to those Muslims, for their total domination over all things female is uppermost on their slate.  A thinking, educated woman working in society would preclude that she can be enslaved as these men want her to be.

Burhannuddin Rabbani is the fourth important, moderate Muslim person in Afghanistan that I personally knew, or had indirectly worked with, who was assassinated through treachery. Massoud, was killed by two thugs working for Osama bin Laden, posing as photographers for a large newspaper. Mr. Hashmatullah Mojaddedi, first president of Afghanistan, was almost killed with his entire family, by a stinger missile taking off the cone of the airplane, as the plane came in for a landing at Kabul airport. Professor Majroo of the Kabul Free Press, relocated in Pakistan and was killed, sitting on his desk, one day after my husband I had visited with the urbane, kind man. His crime: he had published a survey taken in the Afghan camps, showing that 99% of the people wanted the kind to return. They did not want to be governed by any faction of the Mujahiddin.

We should sing requiem for Rabbani and all the moderate Muslims, for they will need our support and good will in the brutal world they must survive in.

 

The Roots of Obama's Rage By Dinesh D'Souza, (Review)

Lately I have been bored to tears by most books that I have read. I even blogged about this most disturbing development because, basically, I loved to read from the time my mother taught me the letters. You, dear readers, have not been helpful with suggestions so far, and have not recommended any splendid, outstanding books.

Well, I managed without your help to find a book that was truly amazing. Dinesh D’Souza, born into an Indian family whose great grandfather was a laborer (they were called coolies than,) on the railroad-line through Kenya and Uganda, says that he and his generation benefitted greatly from British Colonialism. He took on the task to discover what intellectual and emotional forces move President Obama to make decisions for America and its people.

Before I explain Dinesh’s scholarship and reasoning, let me preface the discussion by stating that I evaluate everything written by the following criteria. First: I can accept only logical discourse. Second: I like brevity. Do not try to bamboozle me with a lot of extemporaneous flimflam and hearsay, muddying the water. Third: if I cannot see the straight line leading me your thought process, I refuse to follow your argument. Fourth: if you use false emotion to make your case I will abandon you and your case immediately. I am not young and cannot waste my time with falsehoods and useless frills.

To make a long story short, Dinesh proposes the hypothesis that Barack Hussein Obama, formerly Barry Soetoro, suffered for many years from an identity crisis, more than that even; he had abandonment issues of enormous proportions. I can agree with him on both points. From the beginning, after reading Obama’s “Dreams of my Father,” I wondered how a young child, particularly a boy, would feel if both, his father and mother, both of different cultures and continents, abandoned him. Imagine the psychological load: two people, male and female, white and black of two different continents, found that they could not love and raise you but abandoned you. Wow! 

In a former life I studied psychology and was particularly intrigued with the child’s mind and development. After all, I had two children of my own. From that view point I would argue that a child treated in this way would have trust issues and an inner rage forever.

Dinesh argues that Barry, in order to overcome the multiple issues of race-confusion, abandonment and identity crisis, begins to construct a new reality for himself. He does not see himself as an American but as the child of a larger than life man, Obama sr., whose potential was ruined by colonialism.

From the moment he begins to build the constructs for his persona, researching his father’s past, Barack identifies with his father’s families lives under colonialism. This becomes the overriding theme in his mind. He begins to emote the past, ignores that the world has changed. He, however, to live out his father’s dreams, sees neo-colonialism wherever he goes. To him America becomes the biggest neo-colonial nation, the enemy that must be brought its knees or tamed.

I quote Dinesh: “In other words, Obama is not writing a book about his father’s dreams; he writing a book about the dreams that he got from his father. Think about what that means. The most powerful country in the world is being governed according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s---a polygamist who abandoned his wives, drank himself into a stupor, and bounced around on two iron legs (after his real legs had to be amputated because of a car crash), raging against the world for denying him the realization of his anti-colonial ambitions. This philandering, inebriated African socialist is now setting this nation’s agenda through his reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son is the one, who is making it happen, but the son is, as he candidly admits, only living out his father’s dream the invisible father provides the inspiration and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is being governed by a ghost.”

Oh, dear Dinesh, what an enormous web of research you weave to make your point. What a mind, I was thinking reading my way through the book. As I said earlier, my criteria for judging a book of that character are fairly simple, and I found all fulfilled. Dinesh writes with brevity, intellectual acumen, a straight line through the thought process and no false emotions.

I think one has to read the book and draw one’s own conclusions, but I highly recommend the exercise.

 

 

 

 

 

Readers Respond with their Favorite Quotes

A while back I posted a selection of quotes and sayings. Lo and behold, today I found blog-readers responding with quotes they cherish. I have not gone to the trouble of checking the authenticity of the quotes or whether they were applied to the rightful author. I just share them as they came.

“What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.” Claude Ferdinand Aaron. I like that one! Sent by “Respass 1834”

“…obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.” Adolph Hitler. Sent by Hansome 55       

That quote reminds me of a very famous quote, loaded also with truth, by Hitler, Goebbles and Stalin:  “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed…”   Truth is—all politicians live by that rule.

“The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.”  Ben Stein. Sent by Velega 430

“Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.” Christina Georgina Rossetty. Sent by Sespinosa 237

“It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy—from a lack of character.” Dag Hammarskjold. Sent by Ebinger 1000     

“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.”   Ziggy. Sent by Salata 738

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up by itself.”  Woodrow Wilson. Sent by Beverage954

“I don’t care what they write about me so long as it isn’t true.”   Dorothy Parker. Sent by Billing 1858

“Let every man mind his own business.” Miguel de Cervantes. Sydney 985

 

More Profound Pronouncements:     The dark side of charisma is narcissism. Sharon WatkinsEnron

A wise historian has said that to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant a garden with cut flowers.

“It is impossible to know how precious the mind of a child is if you have not cared for him/her personally.”       S.I.W.                              

“The Islamic world today is being held prisoner, not by Western but by Islamic captors who are fighting to keep closed a world that a badly outnumbered few are trying to open.”                                 Salman Rushdie, in his syndicated column.

 

PARAPROSDOKIANS

More fun with Language. I had to look up "paraprosdokian". Here is the definition:

"Figure of speech, in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation."

"Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.

Now that you know what it is: enjoy this collection by Jon Hammond!

1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

17. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

18. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

19. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

20. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

21. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

22. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

23. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

24. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

25. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

26. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

27. A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

28. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.

29. I always take life with a grain of salt—plus a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.

30. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

Let us follow up with "great" Words of Wisdom:

"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

 

~ Jon Hammond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Wall Street Journal Reports on the EPA

In the Thursday, December 22, 2011 edition of the WSJ I found a report by Ryan Tracy and Deborah Solomon, in which they discussed the politics of the Obama administration to keep the environmental movement in the mood to vote for the president. I find it shameful that the president is willing to destroy more of our job-producing industries by enforcing air-quality standards by imposing ever more stringent rules.

The article states, the administration estimates that the cost of enforcing these new standards will be $9.6 billion annually to implement. In my seventy years on this planet I have seldom come across projection figures by governments that actually ever approximated their projections. Usually those dealing with the implementation of the rules find the cost enormously higher than the government estimate.

An amusing factoid is one of the reasons cited for these stringent rules. The EPA quotes that following these rules would result in substantial benefits to the populace, precluding 100,000 heart and asthma attacks. How the exalted ones at the EPA arrive at these figures is everyone’s guess. Mine is that that they made it up like the previous figure of $9.6 billion, for the end of the article shows an estimate by the American Electric Power Co., the nation’s largest coal powered plant owner, that their compliance costs alone would be $6 billion to $8 billion through 2020.

Even if we assume that this company plays as fast and loose with its estimates as the EPA, the figures still astound if one applies the numbers to all of America’s emission-producing plants.

 

Another Pearl Found In The Wall Street Journal

I cannot imagine what my mornings would be like without the Wall Street Journal. The pearls I find therein are well beyond the realm of ordinary papers. I find myself going blithely on thought-provoking journeys stimulated by reports. Best of all, the fare presented is fairly balanced between the liberal and conservative outlook on the world. In the Saturday /Sunday, October 12, 2011 edition, I found an intriguing book reviewby Paul Ryan of Jeffrey Sachs’ work, The Price of Civilization.

Mr. Sachs’ work concerns itself with the evils of free enterprise and the acquisition of material and monetary wealth to the detriment of moral character, the environment and the lower classes, versus the federal government which, although “incompetent and often corrupt” is still the better alternative and one should have more of it.

As I joyously romped through the cerebral review, I found myself once again contemplating the vexing dilemma of mankind. Everything a human hand touches and a human brain designs is inherently flawed by restrictions set upon us. Whatever system we choose, however hale and moral it may be in its antecedents, sooner or later enough quarreling over spoils, laurels or power will ruin the grand design. We are always left with Hobson’s choice—which system is the lesser evil of the two. We have all felt being in a quandary when choosing a president. Bifurcated are our thoughts on many political issues. As human beings we often cannot foresee the end result of our best laid plans. Who would have thought that gunpowder invented by the Chinese and used for entertainment would soon power weapons of war? The same formula holds for the splitting of the atom. I doubt Madam Currie had in mind the creation of atomic weapons capable to destroy all of human kind. Yet, clever, ruthless people soon found a way to split atoms for arms.

In his review Mr. Ryan states that Mr. Sachs carries into our day, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s reasoning that people in a commercial society are:  “scheming, violent, greedy, ambitious, servile, and knavish.” Yes, they are and always have been no matter the social system in which they function. Unfortunately mankind is not created equal, except for the inalienable rights granted by their creator, and we all know that tyrants do not care about that which is granted by God.

Since we are not equal in any other way, but are uniquely different, as different as splicing genes can make us, we will always suffer from different desires, wants and beliefs. Just give me a group of twenty people and they will often hold twenty different ideas on subjects important to their well-being. Just look at general elections. California has some of the highest taxes in the nation, is deeply in debt, with fraying infra-structure, oppressed by unions, with a student population of which almost half is certifiably unable to speak the English language and in need of special tutoring for years to come. Therefore, it boggles the mind to observe how the populace elects the same corrupt governing body again and again.

It has been said that it true insanity to repeat the action over and over again with disastrous results and expect different results. Well, maybe we have grown comfortable with elected officials who treat the populace like a stupid herd of cattle, because we let them do exactly that. In his book, Mr. Jeffrey Sachs utters precisely this kind of reasoning. Although he acknowledges that the governments, large and small, in the US of A are corrupt and incompetent, he would have us believe that more of it is better.

Thank you very much, dear author, but I for one want less and less of the overwhelming load of bureaucrats that is crushing us under their salaries and retirement accounts. I want fewer rules, fewer Tsars, fewer laws, lawyers and regulations. I have lived through a government of Socialists once before under Communism and once was more than enough. I happily throw my lot in with the free enterprise system that I recognize as the only system to have enriched the most citizens of any country in the world. While travelling all over the world, I have seen with my own eyes that our poor are still richer than 89%, or thereabout, of the people in the world.

Mr. Sachs alludes to the constitutional right to happiness. He wishes, according to Mr. Ryan to establish quantification of America’s citizens happiness and what is lacking therein, and then, have the government do everything to make them happy. What a pathetic dreamer!! I have never in my long life met anyone who was made happy by the efforts of another man. Sorry! One must go out and smell one’s own roses, hike one’s own mountain and decide that it better to love and get hurt sometimes than to sit back and wait for someone to bring perfect love. And with this morsel of hard acquired wisdom I will leave you for today.

 

The Wall Street Journal Induces Me To Think About Orthodoxy and Islam

This blog was posted shortly before the breakdown of the server. Here it is again.

I have not been blogging much lately. I am re-writing a book, giving lectures and that keeps me focused on these projects. However, occasionally one must stray from the well-trodden road, which becomes boring after a while and indulge in flights of critique. On Thursday, January 5, 2012 an article by Joshua Mitnick caught my attention. (No, I am not critiquing Mr. Mitnick, I am lauding him.)  The article was entitled Israeli Women Fight Bus Segregation by Ultra-Orthodox. My eyes popped! Am I reading this right? Women in Israel fighting segregation? I have been to Israel—twice—and have enjoyed myself enormously. Nowhere did I notice segregation!

So imagine my horror and surprise when, upon reading Mr. Mitnick’s article, I find that the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, those with the large, black hats, the beards and the payess, the curled side burns, have, for years been given the privilege of special public busses catering to the needs of the Hasidic Jews. On those designated buses, women must retreat to the back of the bus like American black slaves of yore.

Ye Gods! Is this real? Yes it is, and no one would know about this indignity in our country if Mr. Mitnick, a blessing on his head, had not brought this outrage to our attention. Women in Israel are incensed with this treatment, which has become more frequent as more of the very fertile Orthodox community is branching out ever more into the secular community. Women have been spat on and were subjugated to outrageous critiques and attacks. An eight-year-old girl was harassed by ultra-Orthodox men in Jerusalem. She was spat at and called a prostitute for wearing immodest apparel. This act, shown on TV, brought thousand into the streets in protest, and women have defied the Haredi rabbis, sitting on the buses wherever they please.

Once again this drama illuminates Orthodoxy in all religions for us. One in all, whether Muslim, Judaic, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist they are united in their wish and belief that women are inferior and can be treated as second—or third-class—citizens or slaves. In all of the Orthodox belief-systems women are often the only means of support for a family and most of their rights to freely choose education, dress, behavior and place in the family order are curtailed. I have been restrained in Buddhist countries from visiting places deemed male appropriate only. For the simple reason—the reason given me—that women menstruate and therefore are unclean. To which I always replied, without your mother’s menstruation you would not be on this earth. I have been treated like a wanton in Pakistan because I did not cover my hair or face. Imagine, a woman’s hair is the most erotic thing and must be covered in Islamic countries. Islam still keeps most of its women in an inferior, slave-like position. So, why is Orthodoxy in all forms so toxic to women? Because the antecedents for the entire belief-system of all orthodox religions, is rooted in cultures dating back 2000 years and more. Orthodox religion has never been reformed to fit the strides and discoveries man-kind has made in science, social science, psychology and a new understanding of religion. And for that reformation to occur, women will have to fight for their rights wherever they encounter this discrimination.

 

The blog is back

The blog is finally back online.  More updates coming soon!

PARAPROSDOKIANS

Here are more Paraprosdokians. I admit to having copied them. Although I plagiarized I will share them anyway, for they are cute.

(Winston Churchill loved them) they are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

10. Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my desk is a work station.

1. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

18. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

19. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

23. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

26. Where there's a will, there are relatives.